It is generally reported that earth's environment is experiencing global warming as a result of an increased concentration of harmful gases, especially the so-called greenhouse gases, in the earth's atmosphere. In comparison to the self-regulating natural greenhouse effect arising from natural emissions of various gases, the additional anthropogenic greenhouse effect arising due to gases from manmade sources has resulted in the concentration of these greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increasing by more than 150 percent during the last 100 years. This has serious consequences on the atmosphere and the earth's environment, including a widely reported increase of the worldwide average temperature presumably caused by this greenhouse effect.
Various proposals have been made to reduce manmade and natural emissions of the greenhouse gases, in order to reduce (or minimize the increase of) the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere. However, such a reduction of emissions is difficult to realize and is subject to resistance on many grounds, because achieving such a reduction of emissions would require serious changes in the lifestyle, work habits, production processes, etc. that people around the globe have become accustomed to and continue to demand. Proposals have also been made to remove harmful gases from the atmosphere, for example to capture and sequester carbon from carbon-based gases in the atmosphere, but such proposals have not been shown to be effective or practical, and ground-based systems and methods cannot remove gases from various altitudes in earth's atmosphere where it is most crucial to remove such harmful gases.